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Worm Update: No More Flies!

We checked on the worm bin tonight, and—finally!—the flies are gone. It’s taken four months of no feedings to eradicate the pests, but it eventually worked. (The spider that we found inside may have helped, too.)

It obviously wasn’t the ideal environment for the poor worms; the few dried-up bodies on the floor around the bin were a testament to that. The compost is too compacted because we haven’t been turning it, and too moist because we haven’t been adding paper to absorb the water. But the worms are still doing fine. In fact, they’re huge, and there are tons of them!

Worms love curling up in eggshells and laying cocoons.

There are even worms left in the old bin, the one we stopped feeding in September because it was “finished.” Now it’s really finished, maybe overly so. We’re going to pick the worms out and add them to the current bin. Once we get rid of the compost, we can start fresh and have two bins going at the same time.

There probably aren't even any nutrients left in there....

But from now on, to prevent another fly infestation, I’ll freeze all my scraps before putting them in the bin. Another method of killing fly eggs is microwaving, but I think I like freezing better.

I’m so glad that we can use our worm bins again—all the scraps building up in our fridge were gross and all the trips to Whole Foods to get rid of them were inconvenient. And I love playing with my wormies.